Here at Truth Wins Out, the epidemic of LGBT teen suicides in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin school district has been on our radar for a longtime.
Nonetheless, you need to head over to Rolling Stone and read this article about what LGBT kids go through in Michele Bachmann’s district every day, largely because local evangelicals have waged an all-out war on the area’s LGBT population. This blatant bigotry only serves to intensify the bullying that’s par for the course for LGBT teenagers at schools across the country. In Anoka, homosexuality is forbidden from even being discussed. Teachers and administrators do not intervene when LGBT students are harassed by their peers because they fear being fired for violating a district policy requiring them to stay “neutral” on, and banning positive references to, LGBT people and issues. And the culture of shame and fear that “Christian” fundamentalists (many of them from the same conservative church that Bachmann attended until just last year) have created around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities is so pervasive that LGBT teens feel scared and unsafe within the walls of their schools.
And they’re killing themselves because of it. So many, in fact, that the state of Minnesota declared the Anoka-Hennepin school district a “suicide contagion area.” After one of the suicides — that of Sam Johnson in 2009 — students in the district’s GSAs participated in the Day of Silence. In this GLSEN-sponsored event, participants spent the day in silence to illustrate the silencing effect of the anti-LGBT bullying that led to the loss of several of their peers. The response? Local evangelical churches organized a so-called “Day of Truth” event; their kids showed up at school wearing shirts telling their peers they could pray away the gay and engaged in anti-gay proselytizing in the hallways. (At that time the “Day of Truth” events were sponsored by Exodus International; it’s now been shifted to Focus on the Family and re-branded as a so-called “Day of Dialogue” in a transparent attempt to soft-pedal anti-gay bigotry.)
The way local evangelical “Christians” have doubled down on– not merely shown coldhearted indifference to, but doubled down on — the persecution of LGBT people, even in the wake of so many suicides, is pure evil.
Read, too, about Tammy Aaberg. Her son Justin was an Anoka High School student who committed suicide in 2010 due to anti-LGBT bullying, and his death turned her into an activist. Readers who know me know I have a soft spot in my heart for equality moms (including, I’m proud to say, my own). Hell hath no fury like a mom fighting for her LGBT child. But I have nothing short of awe for moms like Tammy Aaberg and Judy Shepard who fight for a child whom they’ve lost. I don’t know how they do it, but I admire their strength.
This is why the fight for our equality is so important. Slowly but surely, we’re building a world where no more Judy Shepards have to bury a child murdered for being gay, where no more Tammy Aabergs have to discover their baby boy dead in his bedroom because he couldn’t take another day of being bullied for his LGBT identity.
Ladies and gentlemen, we always ask “ex-gay” leaders and their supporting cast of wingnuts to provide numbers, and dangit, Alan Chambers did it this past weekend on a panel discussion at the Gay Christian Network conference! Warren Throckmorton’s blog:
Alan Chambers is asked, I think by GCN Executive Director Justin Lee, about the way Exodus and member ministries describe the work they do. Specifically, Lee asked about the slogan “change is possible.” Chambers responds by discussing his views of sexual orientation change, saying
The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction. I think there is a gender issue there, there are some women who have challenged me and said that my orientation or my attractions have changed completely. Those have been few and far between. The vast majority of people that I know will experience some level of same-sex attraction.
For those who are not familiar with Math, 100% minus 99.9% equals 0.1%. For every one thousand gays who enter “ex-gay” reparative therapy, one of you might be successful, and really you were probably bisexual anyway, so meh.
So speaketh the guru, who, we gently remind readers, has admitted that he is still into guys.
I wrote about this when it happened a few weeks ago, but here is CBN reporting on Exodus’ Alan Chambers being named World magazine’s “Daniel of the Year.” At first I figured they called it that in allusion to the Biblical character of Daniel and the whole lion’s den story, but maybe “Daniel” is just some guy who likes dudes but is married to a lady, which would make Alan Chambers a perfect recipient.
In that report, I love where they mention the Exodus iPhone app being pulled during 2011. In case you forgot, we did that.
So this ad from Exodus International is running in newspapers in Trinidad and Jamaica right now. It’s indicative of their troubles at home that the only places they feel like they’ll get any bang for their buck are already among the most homophobic nations on earth:
Their graphic designer apparently isn’t as good as ours either.
It’s like the Out 100, but there’s only one, and it’s for closet cases. WORLD Magazine has given Alan Chambers their [coveted?] “Daniel of the Year” award:
ORLANDO—Alan Chambers is in denial.
Yep.
It’s a charge his critics level against him on a regular basis. They say that Chambers—a former homosexual who helps others struggling with same-sex attraction—is denying what comes naturally to him. Chambers wholeheartedly agrees.
Well, I guess our work is done.
“For Christians, every day we’re called to a life of biblical self-denial,” he says. “We take up our cross and follow Christ, and we deny what comes naturally.” But he says denial isn’t without reward: “Those who reject the concept of self-denial haven’t reaped the joys that come with it.”
Christians? Help me out here. Because I used to be an Evangelical Christian, and nowhere in those years of brainwashing do I remember anyone else besides gay people being told that they needed to deny an inherent part of their beings. Alan, you’re simply telling yourself things to make yourself feel better.
Self-denial isn’t a new concept to Chambers.
Not at all.
The 39-year-old president of Exodus International—a Christian ministry that helps people struggling with homosexuality—grew up in a Christian home but embraced homosexuality as a teenager. But through years of an active gay lifestyle, Chambers couldn’t shake the biblical conviction that what came naturally to him was also sinful. He didn’t want to be gay.
Eventually, he embraced the biblical teaching that Christ could change his heart, and his sinful patterns, including homosexuality. It didn’t happen quickly. “I didn’t get a magic wand or a lightening bolt,” says Chambers. “I got a very difficult, painful, blood-sweat-and-tears journey—and a Jesus who never left me along the way.”
“And I’m still into dudes like WHOA.”
Part of Chambers’ work involves treading into the lion’s den of mainstream media outlets that scorn the notion that homosexuality is wrong. Critics have called him a bigot, a homophobe, and a spiritual terrorist. An online petition to ban an Exodus application from Apple’s iTunes store earlier this year drew more than 150,000 signatures. Apple dropped the Exodus app, saying it offended large groups of people.
But there’s something that angers Chambers’ opponents as much as his belief that homosexuality is wrong: His message that homosexuals can change.
Reality-based people tend to be angered by outright lies, yes.
If Chambers leads a nationwide ministry, you wouldn’t know it by standing outside the Orlando headquarters where he works. After a handful of security threats from opponents in recent years, the Exodus staffers don’t post a sign on the front door. They don’t publicize their address. They usually lock the doors.
Well yeah, and when the foreclosure fairy comes a-callin’ to reclaim that building, they want to be warned by at least a knock at the door.
Was this award ginned up behind the scenes as part of Exodus’s Hail Mary, Save Our Asses campaign? Just curious.
Chambers takes homemade cards from his children and wife when he travels for work and displays them on the dresser in his hotel room. But he doesn’t offer the cards or pictures as proof that he’s not gay anymore. “My wife isn’t my diploma,” he says. Instead, he says he pursued marriage and children after his homosexual desires changed.
Wait, when did his “homosexual desires change”? Because just above, Alan is admitting that he denies his natural desires for men, men and more men, and moreover, he’s admitted that many times before. He’s not “changed.”
Websites like Truth Wins Out and Ex-Gay Watch have whole sections devoted to condemning Chambers and other ministries to homosexuals. They note that some prominent former leaders of Exodus have returned to homosexuality. Chambers acknowledges that many people do return to homosexuality, but he says that doesn’t negate the validity of Exodus’ message.
Um, it’s less that “some leaders have returned,” and more that it’s a veritable game of whack-a-mole keeping track of which “ex-gay” leaders are currently being paid by “ex-gay” companies to be spokesmodels, which “ex-gay” leaders have fallen off the wagon into a pile of men, and which are both.
Anyway, the rest of the piece is pretty annoying and long-winded, and I have no desire to spend any more time on Alan’s biography, so I’ll just quote this one last piece, where Alan is playing victim as usual, make a joke, and then finish this up:
Chambers says he’s received a handful of threatening calls, including a message saying he should be killed for what he’s doing. He maintains a substantial security system at his home and calls his wife when he’s traveling to go over a security checklist at night. “I don’t live my life in fear, but we’re careful,” he says.
In light of news suggesting that Exodus is discussing its reorganization, Box Turtle Bulletin’s Timothy Kincaid wrote this open letter to its director, Alan Chambers, to “propose a few recommendations.” Highlights:
Surely you would not go about the country telling people about Mount Everest and the success that Sir Edmund Hillary had in conquering the mountain and encourage them to fly right off to Nepal and start climbing. That would be cruel and irresponsible and result in disappointment, wounded bodies and disillusioned spirits.
Yet Exodus has for many years testified of the reported success of some people who have struggled with unwanted same-sex attraction in terms that suggested that this could also be reality for those listening. It has been a cruel and irresponsible behavior and has resulted in disappointment, wounded souls and disillusioned spirits. It needs to stop.
…an increasing number of churches – including conservative evangelical churches – are reaching the conclusion that ones sexual orientation is not, in and of itself sinful or wrong or flawed or even intrinsically disordered.
It’s time for Exodus to join the rest of the world.
It would be ridiculous and offensive to tearfully lament a poor soul “trapped in an Asian American lifestyle.” And you would feel petty for doing so.
It is no less offensive or illogical to talk about being “trapped in a homosexual lifestyle”. There isn’t such a thing. And using language such as “trapped” implies that one can “change” into a heterosexual lifestyle. It shames and demeans a person for what they are. It’s “sissy boy” and “look at that pansy” and “why are you so girly” all over again, just repackaged as “Christian concern”.
When Exodus repeatedly denies the evidence in favor of the biological origins of homosexuality, it places your organization further in enmity to the mind. It build a dichotomy in which objective study, scientific research, and thoughtful analysis are pitted against unsubstantiated dogma and “faith”.
It is unnecessary and even blasphemous to insist that faith – real faith – needs to denounces the senses God gave us and to ignore what is evident. And, ultimately, it isn’t a battle that Exodus can win.
Exodus members should just accept their orientation and get on with finding out what to do about it.
So, in closing, I’d advise you to give Exodus a purpose that is theologically consistent, demonstrably possible, and which celebrates the Exodus member without trashing others.
Ex-Gay Watch posted a report this morning which shows an Exodus International in dire straits, indeed, something many of us on this side of the fence have suspected for a while. Alan Chambers threw a “Hail, Mary” conference several weeks ago for the purposes of finding a way to save/revitalize the organization:
Three years ago, Exodus purchased a building for a little over $1.1 Million. This was at the height of the real estate bubble and it’s value must have decreased significantly since. While they seem to have shed as many of their obligations as possible, debt service for that building must be a great draw on their meager resources. According to IRS documents, they burned through $200,000 of their savings in 2010 alone. In short, if they continue on their current trajectory, there seems little doubt that Exodus will fold in the near future.
Knowing this, Chambers called the New York meeting together and posed the question, “how can we save Exodus?” Unfortunately for those of us who might have a glimmer of hope to the contrary, this plea does not seem to be based on any deep, inner change of heart or ideology. According to first person accounts, the emphasis was on how to make Exodus more “donor accessible.” The meeting was filled with the modern lingo of those who advise on the solicitation of charitable funds. This is about money.
Chamber’s apparently wishes to “re-brand” Exodus into something more palatable to those with funds to give, and the general public alike. According to our sources, Chambers said that “everything is on the table.” That everything apparently includes the possibility of his resignation. It was also clear from the meeting that this is their last resort, their “Hail Mary” so to speak — they’ve tried everything else. Indeed, it seems certain that Chambers would have made pleas to anyone he knew with money before taking this drastic action. And we’ve all seen the odd inconsistencies apparent in their public face. Exodus is an organization fumbling for a solution.
David Roberts goes on to mention that Alan Chambers is mystified by people’s positive reactions to John Smid’s journey toward humanity, and seems to want a piece of that pie. What’s sick about it, though, is that one gets the sense, reading the report, that any “change” in message from Exodus would be purely motivated by money. On some level, at least, the leadership of Exodus understands that the Western world has left them behind, and that the money is drying up for their sort of hateful work, but it doesn’t seem that they’re actually soul-searching in any way. Just looking to rebrand the organization so they don’t look so hateful.
One of the reasons Truth Wins Out and Ex-Gay Watch and other people/organizations with a dog in this fight work so tirelessly to simply expose what these “ex-gay” businesses are all about is that the whole “reparative therapy” model doesn’t fare well in the light of day. Indeed, even moderate-to-conservative Christians, when they find out that it exists, tend to roll their eyes and consider the notion preposterous. So into the light of day we send them and let them succeed or fail on their own merits. Failure tends to be the order of the day.
Exodus plans to announce their “new direction” after their 2012 Leadership conference in January:
It will be after this conference that Exodus announces whatever it is they decide, presumably some sort of apology which allows them to maintain their core ideology, while claiming to have gone about expressing it badly — too much truth and not enough grace, etc.
Wayne remarked in the comments section on Ex-Gay Watch on the plastic, transparent nature of this Hail, Mary! pass from Alan and the Exodus clan:
When Exodus apologizes we expect substance, not a strategy. Chambers must realize that Smid received support because his apology seemed sincere, or at least he was heading in the right direction.
Meanwhile, no one bought The International Healing Foundation’s recent apology from Richard Cohen, who we all thought was full of shit. Chambers would be wise to look at the Cohen flop, not just the Smid success.
The dishonesty and deciept; the semantic games and double talk; the arrogance and allegiance to the political right; the forays overseas that spread hate in places like Uganda; have earned Chambers incredible ill will.
An apology absent a resignation will ring hollow. Chambers should practice some of that conservative “personal responsibility” and admit he has been a failure as a leader and maybe as a human being. He should go somewhere peaceful and quiet to reflect on the harm he has caused as an agent of intolerance. When he returns from exile, he should consider spending the rest of his life undoing the damage that occurred at his hands.
All should read this great piece by Bianca Phillips in Memphis’s alternative newsweekly, the Memphis Flyer. In it, she takes the reader back on a recap of what he and the Exodus flagship model Love In Action used to be, and describes the evolution Smid is undergoing as a result of meeting local gay filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox, whose documentary This Is What Love In Action Looks Like has been making its rounds this fall on the independent film festival circuit:
John Smid, the former director of ex-gay Christian ministry Love in Action, is a changed man.
Sitting in an office above the detached garage of his Germantown home, he has nothing but praise for the work of local gay filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox. Fox’s long-awaited documentary, This Is What Love in Action Looks Like, makes its local premiere at the Indie Memphis Film Festival on November 4th, and it was through the multi-year making of that film that Smid’s ideas about homosexuality began to shift dramatically.
“I’m realizing that people have the freedom in Christ to choose to live in a gay relationship. That’s not for me to judge on their behalf,” said Smid, who resigned as executive director of Love in Action in 2008. “I realize I was what the gay community often said I was: I was judgmental. I was critical. I was somewhat homophobic.”
People who were directly affected by Smid’s activities during his time at Love In Action are having varied reactions to Smid’s change in attitude, and that’s understandable. Peterson Toscano spoke to The Flyer for the article and had this to say, among other things:
“Love in Action was oppression in this concentrated form, so I was very depressed afterwards and suicidal for a time,” said Toscano, who wrote the play Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House as a way to cope with the damage. “I was really confused, and there was lots of self-hatred and shame. There was lots of bad training about sexuality. Nobody was trained to teach anything.”
Toscano said one of Love in Action’s core teachings was especially damaging.
“They insisted that, as queer people, we were not able to have healthy relationships. So even friendships would become twisted and perverted because we became too emotionally needy,” Toscano said. “I found myself putting up walls five to six years later as I was getting to know people. I had it in my head that I couldn’t get close to people.”
So glib apologies aren’t really going to cut it, though it does seem like Smid really is starting to grasp what he did. Peterson has talked about Smid’s “evolution” extensively on his blog, so if you haven’t read that, do so.
Lastly, Bianca also interviewed me for the article and asked what Truth Wins Out’s response to this sort of thing is. Here is what I said:
Evan Hurst, the Memphis-based social media director for anti-ex-gay group Truth Wins Out, echoes the sentiment many former clients have publicly expressed.
“If [Smid] is on a path of personal growth and starting to grasp that he played a key part of inflicting harm onto people, that’s great. [Truth Wins Out] only wishes him the best in continuing on that road,” Hurst said. “But part of our mission is to expose this industry for what it is. We’re not shy about our goal, and that’s to let every single person know how harmful these ministries are.”
Yup! So anyway, go read the whole thing to see what you’re missing.
Last month, an equality advocate named Sai launched a new viral site called gayhomophobe.com. The site (which is already receiving critical acclaim, even from across the pond!) features a countdown tally at the top of the page listing the number of days since a prominent homophobe was caught in a gay-related scandal (the currently-featured ex-homophobe is John Smid of Love in Action, who came out of the closet and recanted his “ex-gay” teachings eight days ago) along with a list of previous notables including Eddie Long, George Rekers, Larry Craig, and Mark Foley.
According to the site, Sai’s goal is to list people “who used a position of power to promote or support an anti-gay agenda, and turned out to be a closet case,” regardless of political or religious affiliation. He also includes people such as Ken Mehlman and Roy Ashburn who reversed their anti-gay views after their respective scandals and came out publicly in support of LGBT rights, in order to show that people can change (not from gay to straight, but from self-loathing to self-accepting). Check it out — it’s a very handy resource!
And now, for some news: Truth Wins Out is honored to announce that Sai has decided to donate all of the ad revenue from gayhomophobe.com to TWO in support of our work fighting anti-LGBT religious extremism and the “ex-gay” myth. Additionally, equality supporter and Google employee Lee Colleton used his employer’s gift matching service to double Sai’s contribution.
All of us here at Truth Wins Out — Wayne, myself, Evan, and the rest of the team — are humbled by and grateful for the investments that Sai, Lee, and all of our other contributors make in our work for LGBT equality. We very truly could not do it without your support.
My sincere hope is that every time Truth Wins Out stands up to anti-LGBT extremism, breaks a major news story, and fights “ex-gay” lies with facts — every time we strike a blow for equality, whether it’s convincing Apple to nix an “ex-gay” iPhone app, holding celebrities like Tracy Morgan accountable for homophobic remarks, or exposing the Bachmann clinic for its use of “ex-gay therapy” — our contributing members like Sai and Lee are aware of how great a share they have in each and every victory, and how truly thankful we are that they help to make them possible. Thank you!
To visit Sai’s site, go to gayhomophobe.com
If you’d like to join Sai, Lee, and many others in contributing to Truth Wins Out, click here.
Huge news from Memphis, which has long been the regrettable home of one of Exodus International’s flagship models, Love In Action. The residential program, which abused so many people for so many years, is no more:
Love In Action’s Residential program has been suspended indefinitely. Simply put, there is a significant need to bring all of LIA under one location for it to be more cost effective. We continue to counsel and grow through our 4-Day Intensives, Hourly Counseling, Conferences, Support Groups, and Church Assistance Program.
When Wayne spoke in Memphis, we visited the former headquarters of LIA’s counseling business, and LIA survivors with us visited the home where they lived while in the program, only to find it on the market. I had heard rumblings that the program was coming to an end, but the confirmation is great news.
It’s, of course, too much to ask that they might be doing this because they recognize how many lives they have destroyed over the years, as they still have a referral link for other “biblically based” residential programs.
I am thrilled that the sun has finally set on this part of the program–one that housed and harassed many of us these past 30 years. While they will continue to offer some limited services, it appears that they have begun to dismantle operations.
That would be a good thing, both for Memphis and for the rest of the country. Any time one of these programs is shut down, it means that untold numbers of potential victims could escape the psychological and spiritual abuse they dole out in exchange for people’s hard earned money.
So this is good news! But there are still many more of these programs out there, though, so we’ll be around, fightin’ the good fight.
Here at Truth Wins Out, the epidemic of LGBT teen suicides in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin school district has been on our radar for a long time.
